


Sibelius's Eighth

by idellaphod, lirin



Category: Oxford Time Travel Universe - Connie Willis
Genre: Audio Format: Streaming, Classical Music, Community: pod_together, Gen, Jean Sibelius - Freeform, Podfic, Podfic & Podficced Works, Podfic Available, Podfic Length: 20-30 Minutes, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-02 10:36:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11507640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idellaphod/pseuds/idellaphod, https://archiveofourown.org/users/lirin/pseuds/lirin
Summary: Ever since the net had reopened to objects, Dunworthy had been given plenty of suggestions for what could be retrieved. A script for a lost play, books from a lost library...or the sheet music for a lost symphony.





	Sibelius's Eighth

Cover Art provided by idella.

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## Streaming Audio

## Downloads

  * [MP3](http://pod-together.parakaproductions.com/2017/%5BOxford%20Time%20Travel%20Universe%5D%20Sibeliuss%20Eighth.mp3) (right click; save as) | 60 MB



## Duration

  * story - 16min | freetalk - 10min 

  
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The stranger arrived on a Tuesday.

He was escorted to Dunworthy’s office by Mr. Eddritch—if someone who is exclaiming “Excuse me, sir, do you have an appointment?” can be considered an escort.

“Thank you very much, I think I can find my own way out,” the man said, pushing the door shut and thereby ejecting Eddritch from the room. He turned to Mr. Dunworthy and extended a hand. “Horace Schmetterling, lead violist of the Royal Philharmonic,” he said.

“Congratulations,” Mr. Dunworthy said. “I don’t believe I’ve—”

“Ah!” Schmetterling lunged past Dunworthy, ignoring his protestations, and nearly tripped over the desk. At first, Dunworthy thought his unwanted guest was headed for the telephone, but instead Schmetterling seized upon the audio player on the wall next to the telephone screen. He pulled an audio chip from his jacket pocket and put it in the play queue. Dunworthy cringed as sound issued from the speakers, but it was only some inoffensive classical music.

Schmetterling was looking expectantly at Dunworthy.

“That...sounds nice?” Dunworthy said.

“Nice! It was exquisite! Pure genius!”

“If you say so,” said Dunworthy. “Would you mind telling me why you’re here?”

“This masterwork,” Schmetterling replied, gesturing grandly at the audio player, “was lost to history in a tragic fire. Only a few scraps and notes remained to be reconstructed into the recording we just enjoyed, which gives us a hint at the grandeur that was lost.” He stepped closer, looming over Dunworthy, who was still seated at his desk. “Our second trombone’s niece is a student at Oxford, and last week after rehearsal he told me all about what she’s been learning about insignificant objects, and how once items are believed to be destroyed they become insignificant and can be brought forward in time. This is our chance! We can preserve Sibelius’s lost masterwork for future generations!” He seized Dunworthy by the shoulders. “You must help me.”

Dunworthy reached up and detached Schmetterling’s hands from his person. “I can look into it,” he said.

“I don’t think you realize the urgency,” Schmetterling said. “Those manuscripts are being _burnt_ , and you’re just sitting here.”

“They aren’t being burnt _now_ ,” Dunworthy said. “They disappeared to history years ago, and at that time, either they burnt—or they did not. In incidents such as this, we can take as much time as we need in our own time period to prepare, and still arrive in the past right on time. That’s one of the benefits of time travel.” He retrieved a notepad from his desk drawer. “Who did you say the composer was? And when were his works destroyed?”

“Jean Sibelius. His eighth symphony was burnt in April 1945. It was a tragedy, I tell you—”

“Yes, I’m aware,” Dunworthy interjected. “I’ll look into the situation and then we can discuss how to proceed. Please make an appointment with my secretary to come back next week.”

Schmetterling backed away from him slowly, staring into his eyes the whole time. “It’s a masterwork,” he whispered just before he left the room.

“Make an appointment!” Dunworthy called after him as the door swung shut.

* * *

A student whose drop had been rescheduled without her consent was the next to storm past Eddritch—what was the point of a secretary if he just sat there and watched uninvited visitors walk past him?—and what with one thing and another it was late in the afternoon before Dunworthy had a chance to research what Schmetterling had told him.

He pulled a handheld from the desk drawer, and referred to the notes he had taken earlier. “Biography of Jean Sibelius.”

`Sibelius, Jean (1865-1957)`  
`Finnish composer; late Romantic and early Modern periods`  
`Best known for the tone poem Finlandia. Other tone poems include the Lemminkäinen Suite and Tapiola. Other famous works include seven symphonies and the Violin Concerto in D minor.`

“Pause,” Dunworthy said. Eddritch was standing in the doorway. “Yes?”

“Mr. Kildow telephoned, inquiring about rescheduling his drop to Antietam,” Eddritch reported.

“Is he still on about that? Tell him to take it up with the lab,” Dunworthy said. “I’m not in charge of scheduling. Though if he keeps postponing his drop, who knows how he expects to have time to write his thesis.”

“I’ll tell him to contact the lab,” Eddritch said.

Dunworthy had enough to keep him busy without people bringing him troubles that were someone else’s problem entirely. He briefly considered phoning the lab to make sure Kildow got in touch, but if he kept interrupting his research, he would be here all evening. If Kildow didn’t graduate for another year, that would be entirely his own fault. “Resume.”

`Sibelius is generally considered Finland’s greatest composer. Much of his music contains a strong nationalist sentiment.`

“Stop. Play an example work,” Dunworthy said. Experiencing the artistic output of a new time period was always one of the more enjoyable parts of pre-drop research. He leaned back in his chair to listen.

`Finlandia, Op. 26, 1899-1900.`

“Stop. Play another example.”

`Symphony No. 5, I. Tempo molto moderato, Op. 63, 1910-11.`

It was...certainly something. Dunworthy had never paid enough attention to classical music but it seemed like the sort of thing someone like Schmetterling would be able to listen to all day. He had a momentary twinge of jealousy at the other’s profession; listening to music seemed much more appealing than than all the dry reports he had to read for his job. On second thought, that was probably an unrealistic picture; they must have plenty of harder work. After all, everyone who knew about Dunworthy’s occupation assumed he just spent his days wandering around in the past and having adventures. Goodness knew that wasn’t true, but to the man on the street it probably sounded even more attractive than sitting around and listening to music all day. Which he was about to do if he wasn’t careful. “Stop. Sibelius’s Eighth Symphony.”

`Jean Sibelius worked on his Eighth Symphony from the 1920s—most likely already making notes for it while working on his Seventh Symphony which was completed in 1924—until the late 1930s, but he was never satisfied with it. The later decades of Sibelius’s life are known as the Silence of Järvenpää due to the sudden curtailment of his compositional output, including the rumored Eighth Symphony. The symphony is generally believed to have been burnt by Sibelius in 1945. Only a few sketches and fragments survive. For more information, see The Silence of Järvenpää.`

Dunworthy gazed fixedly at his desk as the audio report petered into silence. He'd suspected that Schmetterling was not entirely reliable, but he'd hoped that his facts, at least, could be trusted. He realized now that Schmetterling had avoided any statement of how the works had been burnt, or of who had been responsible. Dunworthy wrung his hands, considering the situation. This was much different from their usual fare of rescuing objects from arson and accidents. What Schmetterling wanted was more like straight-up theft.

He turned to the phone on the wall behind him. “Eddritch? Please contact Mr. Schmetterling and cancel his appointment. Tell him I will not be able to pursue this matter further at this time. Make the appropriate excuses—I’m busy, not enough funding, prefer to focus on Britain—anything you can think of, really.”

That was that settled, at least. Dunworthy turned back to his desk. He had just enough time before dinner to walk over to the lab and settle the question of why they had rescheduled Miss Ward’s drop.

* * *

At dinner, Dunworthy became admittedly distracted, lost in a conversation about World War I poetry manuscripts. A little after nine o'clock, he was finally almost ready to leave, when Badri burst in. He looked like he’d run all the way from the lab.

“Don’t tell me Miss Ward’s drop got moved to tonight,” Dunworthy said.

“Not unless she developed a sudden interest in Finland,” Badri said.

Dunworthy jumped from his seat and made hasty excuses to his dinner companions. “Finland?” he exclaimed, hurrying from the room with Badri at his side. “Who went to Finland?”

“Apparently, an intruder. I got an alert that the net had been accessed without permission, so I went over to have a look around, but the lab was empty by the time I got there. I ran a fix to make sure I wasn’t misunderstanding what had happened, but I thought I’d better get you before I did anything else.”

“I had a guest today who was interested in Finland. He wanted to retrieve an item that was destroyed in April 1945.”

“This is probably him, then,” Badri said. “The target date was 4 February 1945, which would give him plenty of time to locate the object before its destruction. But there was more than two months’ worth of slippage. I’m not sure when I’ve ever seen that much.”

“So he arrived in April?”

“18 April. Do you know when the item was destroyed?”

“He didn't say. But if you've read Lewis's thesis on Slippage and the Space–Time Continuum, his theories would indicate that the event being avoided occurred shortly before the end of the slippage period, so most likely on 17 or 18 April. I doubt the space–time continuum is any happier with Schmetterling than I am. Two months of slippage, indeed.”

“How do you want to run the retrieval?” Badri asked.

“Use the fix that you got to send me through right after Schmetterling got there, then run an intermittent, opening every 15 minutes. If I don’t find him within 2 hours, I’ll come back on my own.”

“The intruder went through in a real-time drop. If I’m going to use the same coordinates, I’ll have to send you through two hours after he arrived. I could get you coordinates to arrive earlier, but it would take a while.”

“Two hours is fine,” Dunworthy said.

* * *

Sibelius’s house was surrounded by pine trees and other foliage, so the drop was able to be quite close to the house and still open without being seen. One moment, Dunworthy was in the lab giving Badri final instructions (that Badri presumably knew he didn’t need, or he wouldn’t have opened the drop in the middle of them), and the next moment, he was sopping wet and melting snow was continuing to drip onto him from an overhanging tree branch.

The house was a hundred meters or so to the south. He could start there—invade the famous composer’s privacy and ask him if he’d had any visitors, possibly raving, in the past hour or two. If Sibelius even spoke English, that is; he hadn’t thought to check. But as Dunworthy looked around, he realized the partially-frozen mud and bracken beneath his feet were disturbed by boot marks. Following them seemed much more likely to be productive.

Schmetterling was standing on a hillock when Dunworthy found him. From the top of the rise, as Dunworthy joined him, the house was just visible. Smoke poured from one of the chimneys. Schmetterling huddled in on himself, close to tears.

Dunworthy's annoyance faded slowly at the sight of Schmetterling's grief. “There's nothing you could have done,” he said, though he knew it was little comfort.

Schmetterling's head lifted at his words, but he did not turn. His eyes were fixed on the column of smoke.

“We need to get home,” Dunworthy added. He stepped closer, studying Schmetterling with concern.

“He's a genius,” Schmetterling whispered finally. “How could he do this to the world?”

Dunworthy put his arm around the other man's shoulders and led him down the slope, where they could no longer see the smoke. “He's a man you respect, choosing how he wishes to be remembered,” he said gently. “An equally relevant question would be, how could you try to do this to him?”

The forest was calm and quiet. The only sounds were the drip-drop of melting snow, and the chirps of a few hardy birds who knew spring had come. The drop brought with it the sound of electronic beeps from Badri’s console, for the few seconds that it was open to bring Dunworthy and Schmetterling through. But from the manuscripts burning unhindered in a nearby kitchen stove, there was no sound at all.


End file.
